My birthday is on the 20th, my anniversary is on August 5th, and the baby -- well, we're fairly certain she'll show sometime among the days between the two dates. Those two weeks will certainly be very busy, which is the reason James gave for my getting the camera now. However, I personally think he's trying to distract me from "The List" -- particularly considering how a portion of our house has been without power since yesterday when I shut off a breaker to try my hand in installing a new light fixture. I'm out of control!

Regardless of the reason, this is the greatest Birthday-Anniversary-"Hey, thanks for bearing my child" gift ever! Thanks, James -- you're the BEST!

I talk about my life anyway because if, on the one hand,hardly anything could be less important, on the other hand,hardly anything could be more important.My story is important not because it is mine, God knows,but because if I tell it anything like right, the chances areyou will recognize that in many ways it is also yours.Maybe nothing is more important than that we keep track, you and I,of these stories of who we are and where we have come fromand the people we have met along the waybecause it is precisely through these stories in all their particularity,as I have long believed and often said, that God makes himself knownto each of us most powerfully and personally.-- Frederick Buechner